It may not be a sure thing, but it sure looks like the smart-money bet. Despite notching up even more air miles than James Shaw of Te Pati Kakariki to promote Joe’s war, western governments are short of money and increasingly see the need to spend what they have on their own people.
From Thomas Fazi at unherd.com:
Since Russia’s invasion of part of Ukraine, the Western public has been sold the story of a Ukrainian front united in its unwavering commitment to a total military victory over Russia. Over the past few weeks, however, this narrative has started to crumble.
Despite the failure of Ukraine’s Nato-backed counteroffensive, now universally accepted, Zelensky continues to stick to the maximalist victory-at-all-costs narrative — that Ukraine must go on fighting until it retakes every inch of lost territory, including Crimea, and that Putin should not be negotiated with. This is understandable: he has staked everything on achieving that objective — anything less would probably mean the end of his political career.
But Zelensky’s position is looking increasingly isolated. As Simon Shuster wrote in Time magazine, “Zelenskyy’s associates themselves are extremely skeptical about the [current] policy”, describing the president’s belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia as “immovable, verging on the messianic”.
In early November, none other than Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Valery Zaluzhny, told The Economist that the war with Russia had reached a stalemate and was evolving into a long war of attrition — one in which Russia has the advantage. Many took this to mean that the general believes that the time has come to negotiate a deal with Russia. This led to a public confrontation between Zaluzhny and Zelensky, who rebuked the general’s assessment and repeated his refusal to negotiate any ceasefire deal with Moscow.